COOL NEW OLD THINGS FOR WRITERS (Part one)

1) Bloggers are, by nature, given to excessive written self-contemplation.

2) Many bloggers are thwarted writers.

3) Writers, failed or otherwise, are among the most bloodthirstily competitive sons of bitches on the planet.

Ergo, one is on occasion presented with the ungainly spectacle of bloggers biting one another’s backs as they try to claw their way to the imaginary top of blog mountain (where, presumably, Dean Allen sits crosslegged, contemplating the, uh, fray, with serene detachment). Some of our favorite bloggers have lashed out against other bloggers, and some bloggers are wont to distance themselves from the very word and all that it now connotes.

The latest cup of tea from this tempest is Dennis Mahoney’s How To Write A Better Weblog. Mahoney, a blogger whose writing we generally enjoy, proves his heart is in the right place by offering some tips intended to atone for an earlier bitchy screed. The tips, however, mostly served to remind us of some similar but much more resonant advice once offered by Kurt Vonnegut in a magazine advertisement long ago.

We were rather young when we first saw this International Paper ad, but we were sincerely influenced by it, and we were quite overcome with tears of delight when we went to dig up its text. We were reminded of who we were then, and what we liked, and what we would become, and how these words helped mould us. We present it, here, to you, whether you have a weblog or not, because we think you will love it the way we do.

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(Part two) THINGS FOR WRITERS COOL NEW OLD

Help us with our cut ups. Find this new cut up machine (via The Morning News) to of good ol’ William S. Burroughs, and we were thrilled to here at Mango Pudding Blues we have long been admirers.

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YOUR TYPICAL REALTOR

Reported verbatim.

“...and suddenly the whole parkade is full of biker-looking guys with guns. Big guns. And I’m knocked to my ass and this guy with a big scraggly beard and a leather jacket has his boot on my throat and his shotgun pointed in my face, and he’s shouting “CUBE”, and I’m suddenly very happy, because CUBE is the like Combined Unit for somethingorother anti-drug US/Canada local/national/international task force undercover Bad guy Enforcement, see, and that meant that he wasn’t really a biker and wasn’t, therefore, going to shoot me in the face.

“And this is such a cliché, but you know, I just knew something was funny about that deal. But the guy was a friend and he needed my help. So what do you do?

“I spent five fucking years as a guest of Her Majesty. When I got out it was Christmas and I got a great big bag of cocaine and went home to my mother’s house and just got my head together. I decided to get out. That’s when I decided to get into real estate.”

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ARE THINGS GOING WELL AT WORK?

No, gentle reader, things are not going well at work. Things at work are unwell. So much so that our mind has been, just lately, roiling and boiling with negative thoughts. Thoughts such as, why is this happening? and sez who? and no way! and where does he get off saying that to me? and so on. So imagine our delight when we found out that a new anti-negative thought technique is currently in vogue. Yes, the thought chop.

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FUCK OFF

Some motherfucking fuckstick wrote in all fucking pissed off about the fucking foul language in the fucking post yester-fucking-day. Now, as much as we here at Mango pissing Pudding fucking Blues appreciate your motherfucking goddamned patronage, we sure as fucking hell don’t give a shit about your dipshit bourgeois hangups. Cumbreath shitheels like this fucking pussyface assfuck cunt who find our content objectionable will hereafter find their passwords to our site revoked.

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YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?

You call yourself winter? That’s all you got? You think I’m down just because of a few feet of goddam snow? Just because the goddam sun sets at goddam four o’clock in the afternoon? You think you got me up against the goddam ropes? Spittin’ chicklets? Just because you pooped down some frigid air and ice? You think I’m gonna sit here and beg just because it’s cold outside?

You think you got me beat because I been trapped in the house? You think you got me runnin’? I ain’t runnin’. I ain’t beat. I’m just biding my time. I’m waiting. You ain’t nothin’ to me. I walked through the likes of you so many times now that I don’t even notice you. You crack my cheeks? So what? Bloody my nose? Big deal. Turn my days and nights into a misery? Fuck you. I’m whistling fucking dixie while I walk through you. I ain’t even thinkin’ about you. I’m thinkin’ about what’s for fucking dinner. You want my ear? Take my fucking ear. I seen you before. I ain’t runnin. I ain’t gonna beg. Fuck you.

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